Forgiveness, hope, creativity and love.

"Henri's entire ministry was built around Jesus' farewell address in the Gospel of John in which Jesus says, "I have called you friends"; "I will not leave you orphaned";" I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you"; "My peace I give to you"; "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you"; and "You will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy." For Henri, Jesus' revelation was primarily in the real of relationship; in Jesus, God invites us into a relationship of forgiveness, hope, creativity, and love." 
From; "The Essential Henri Nouwen, edited by Robert A. Jonas

Forgiveness, hope creativity and love.  I find it really interesting that forgiveness is before hope.  Hope continues to be an important theme for me this advent.  Hope that God can stoke the fire of love and passion within me.  Hope that we can experience God in the lives we live.  Hope that when we experience that fire we are driven into the world to be a sign of God's love. 

What gets in our way?  So often we live with messages from our past or from the world around us that we are not enough, we don't have enough or some form of shame based negative message.  Those dark messages, those places within us that hide or squash God's passion do not reconcile with the God of my understanding.  God's love and compassion are so vast that we truly do not have the capacity to warp our hearts and minds around it.  As human beings we listen to our elders, parents, teachers, ministers.  We listen as children, we come to the world with wonder and innocence.  When fear and darkness replace the wonder, God struggles to shine through. 

Forgiveness can be looked at as removing a veil.  What would it be like to let go of the messages that stand in your way?  What would it be like to stand still and listen?  Have you ever been for a walk in the woods in the wintertime?  You are the only one there.  The stillness surrounds you, the breaking of a branch, startles you, and the quiet feels like a blanket surrounding you.  In the stillness you experience a knowing, a knowing that allows you to remember that you are God's beloved, a knowing that the fear of those messages was not your fear.  The fear of those messages was about something or someone else.   

At this time of Advent, ask yourself what those messages are that block the light of God's presence within you.  How are messages of fear and shame darkening your way?  Prayers of forgiveness for those people or institutions that are the source of those messages can be offered up to God.  I am not suggesting that this is easy or that these prayers will be needed only once.  Discipline is a crucial element of the Christian walk. As we are reminded in the Gospel of John, "I will not leave you orphaned"; "I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you."  But, I am here to suggest that if we do offer up those prayers, if we do then move to embrace hope, creativity and love, it is in those places that we will experience God's grace. 

Advent is a time of preparation, a time of making room.  Could forgiveness be a form of cleaning out our basements?  Letting go of all those things that we really don't need, and perhaps are suffocating who we are and who God is calling us to be.